


The Keeper

by beetle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Dubious Consent, Force Ghosts, Force-bond, Friendship/Love, Ghosts, Jedi, Jedi Keeper, Jedi Training, M/M, One True Pairing, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Soul Bond, The Force, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5560712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his fight with Kylo Ren, Finn finds himself in a desert, where he runs into two familiar Jedi faces who offer him a choice between life and death.</p><p>(Thanks to Calicomary for the summary suggestions!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Spoilers for Episode VII and vague spoilers for Episode I. There's also dub-con in the story, in one of the chapters, but I'll warn again when that chapter comes up.

**Prologue**

 

He staggered up and down dunes, across hard-pan, but the desert was never-ending, like his unslaked thirst. He trudged on under hot sun and icy star, knowing not where he was going, only that he must go the way he was walking.

 

Having long-since taken off the dusty black undershirt he’d been wearing, he tied it around his waist. The only thing he wore to keep away total exposure was his leather jacket which, no matter how sweaty he got—very—and how much he began to stink—mind-blowingly, though after a while, the desert-planet stole even the stench of his own body—it always seemed to smell like wind and sky and stars.

 

One afternoon, the latest of so very many since he’d started walking, he saw, at last, a feature in the arid, unchanging landscape.

 

At first he thought it a mirage, but unlike everything else about his wavering vision, it stayed perfectly still, never moving, taunting him with its distance.

 

He walked faster, despite his exhaustion and a thirst so great he could barely breathe around it.

 

He would not, he knew, reach it this day, nor maybe even the next. But reach it he would. It was his only hope, this new feature, this unmoving structure, this . . . ship.

 

#

 

He stumbled and lost his footing.

 

He went tumbling, breathless and boneless, down the last of the dunes, and landed glancingly on hard-pan, scrub vegetation—what did it _live_ off of?—and gravel, skinning his palms and crying out in a dry, useless croak.

 

It was long minutes before he could lever his dusty, broken, weary body up to his knees, and when he did, he sat back on his heels breathing hard in the shade thrown by the ship. She loomed above him, seemingly larger than a mountain, though she wasn’t. Not really. She was just a light freighter. A Corellian YT-1300, by the faded markings he saw when he staggered around her.

 

Like him, she was worse for wear . . . empty, derelict, and silent in this desert Hell.

 

He searched briefly before he found a hatch, and boarded her.

 

Whatever else she was, she was still sound. The ever-present dust, sand, and grit of this desert Hell hadn’t made it on board (though he brought quite a bit of it on board with him).

 

Everything—every corridor, every access panel, every turn of her was somehow . . . familiar. In this place, this dry, featureless place, where even memory had dried up, there was a sense of knowing about this old girl:

 

He _knew_ her. She was both fast and dependable. A miracle-worker of a ship.

 

Making his way to the galley, he decided that he would figure out this strange knowledge later. First things were first: water. Food. More water. In that order.

 

After that . . . after that, he’d see if her power cells still held enough juice to get him back into the black. Not that he knew much about flying a ship. In fact . . . he knew _nothing_ about it.

 

 _Fuck_ , he thought with desperate gallows humor. _I need a pilot._

 

It was as familiar a thought as this familiar ship. But there was no context supplied by his mind, no explanation for that familiarity.

 

“Water,” he chuffed almost soundlessly. Thirst had stolen his voice. “Water, first.”

 

#

 

He waited for the sun to go down in the relative cool of the shade created by the ship’s bulk, then stared off in the direction in which the shadows of the freighter lay.

 

The direction in which he’d been walking for eternity and in which he would for eternity walk.

 

Not only hadn’t there been any food or water aboard the derelict freighter, but the power cells had been dead. And damaged beyond repair, as well. There would be no escape, no rescue—he couldn’t even sound the Mayday beacon—no hope.

 

Indeed, with the setting of the swollen ball of the sun, so went the _last_ of his hope. His hope of escape, his hope of rescue, his hope of an end to this Hell he was suddenly certain he’d somehow earned . . . though he still could not remember how or why.

 

Hopeless, his chest hitching with what would’ve been tears in a more hydrated man, he walked on.

 

#

 

The next unchanging thing he saw on the landscape entered his failing eyesight less than a day later.

 

The large pile of dun-grey stones, surrounded by olive-colored flora, as delicate as it was hearty, was like something out of an old story or holo. An actual _waystation_. With an _oasis_. It fairly _reeked_ of water even in this windless place . . . . even from half a day’s march away, and he staggered toward it with no more rhyme, reason, or sense than any dying animal presented with a ray of hope.

 

It was as the last of the sun’s insane light crept down the horizon, as he was making his weary, near-blind way down the last, slight hard-pan hill, that his wobbling legs gave out and he fell, rolling into a dry gully at the bottom.

 

He rolled and stopped with a chuff that, in a man who wasn’t at death’s door, would have been a groan.

 

Finally, opening gritty, unseeing eyes, he began to crawl in the direction he remembered the oasis being.

 

It was, he knew, his last chance at staving off death for at least a little longer. Though he genuinely wondered why he was so keen to try.

 

#

 

As the final rays of sunlight left the sky in protesting orange-gold streaks, his fingers scrabbled their last on the hard-pan, his skinned, dirty knees scraped across the desert floor no more.

 

He did not know it, but he was a mere yard away from the waystation and its life-giving oasis.

 

He did not know anything, anymore, but darkness. . . .

 

#

 

And then . . . there was light. . . .

 

Not the harsh, mad, buzzing light of the sun, but a softer, kinder light. _Candlelight_. It confused and dazzled his eyes, like prisms made of color and shadow.

 

Even as he opened his eyes, he could taste the dampness on the air, and licked his grit-salty lips, tasting water there, too.

 

He could not help it. He moaned, desperate for _more_.

 

More was given to him. A wooden spoon was held to his lips, satin-smooth with age, and from it, he slurped the mouthful of cool, mineral-tasting water with what little there was of his slowly returning strength.

 

“Easy, now, friend. Easy. You’ve had a rather trying few days,” a soft voice said . . . it, too was familiar, especially the mild Coruscant accent. “Take too much, too fast and too soon, and you’ll make yourself sick and lose it all. _Then_ where would you be?”

 

He opened eyes which, this time, were only slightly less dazzled by the kind candlelight and smudge-edged shadows, and tried to see . . . what there was to see. Namely, whom he had to thank for his continued survival.

 

He blinked several times and squinted. He heard an indulgent and amused chuckle, light and smooth, and the spoon, now empty, left his lips.

 

“You wish to have a look around, is that it?” Even as his savior spoke, the candlelight dimmed noticeably. He could just make out the other’s shape in the murkiness of the room. “There. You’ll still have to take it slow. Your eyes will be light sensitive for a while, yet.”

 

“Wh-who . . . are you?” he asked in a voice that sounded far less rough and husky than he expected. The other, who appeared to be standing, bent and sat next to him. And that was when he realized that he was lying in a soft pallet, propped up slightly by what felt like piles of rough cloth. “Where are we?”

 

Squinting at his host again, he waited for an answer as his vision resolved itself into something approaching normal.

 

“The answer to both those questions is complex, and should, all things being equal, wait. Until. . . .”

 

“Until?” he asked of his host, who leaned into the light obligingly. He was dressed like a desert monk, in dark trousers, a grey tunic, tied off with a utility belt, and a long brown robe. He was of average height and pale, for a desert-dweller. His hair was auburn, his features regular and handsome, his eyes a steely-blue that would’ve been breathtaking, were it not for his guest’s strong feeling that he’d seen eyes that were even _more_ affecting.  _Hazel_ eyes that warmed when their owner laughed, and flashed when he was excited or angry, and always, _always_ lit up when they gazed at him, and said his name. . . .

 

Whatever _that_ was.

 

Apparently, also lost in a reverie of his own, his host finally shook his head and smiled kindly. “Until your mind is fully healed, of course. And at its full strength. With time and care.” That kind smile faded some. “Unfortunately we don’t have the time for you to heal gently or slowly. You must make your decision now, I’m afraid.” His host glanced around over his right shoulder, into the darkness, which his guest’s compromised eyes could not pierce. Then he looked back around, his face set in lines of consternation and uncertainty. “Look—what do you know of life and of death?”

 

Blinking in surprise at the seeming change in subject, his guest finally shrugged. “All I know about life and death is, if you’re not doing one, you’re probably doing the other.”

 

“A fair enough answer, if fundamentally flawed,” his host said, his lips twitching as if he’d laugh. But that, too, faded in a few moments. “And the Force . . . what do know of that?”

 

Blinking again, his guest snorted. “Ghost stories. Tales to frighten the gullible and naïve.”

 

“I see.” His host looked down, frowning. “And what if I told you that the Force was _real_? That it surrounded and permeated every living thing in this universe? That, like any and all physical and spiritual forces, it can be harnessed and controlled to do good . . . or evil?”

 

“If you told me _that_ , I’d say you were one _lenpo_ tuber shy of an order of fries.”

 

Chuckling, his host raised the spoon and thumped him on the back of the hand. “That’s a fine thing to say to the man who rescued you!”

 

Grinning and leaning back into the coarse, but pillowing cloth behind him, his guest rolled his tired, still-gritty eyes. “I apologize. I thought we were still dealing in hypotheticals and suppositions.”

 

“Cheeky.” His host reached down next to the bed and picked up a metal tureen filled with clear water, so cool and fresh, the scent of it made his nostrils flare. “And what if I _further_ told you that for longer than either you or I have existed, and long after we will be subsumed back into the Force, that water has been known to represent more than itself. It represents life, emotion, and, perhaps most importantly, knowledge and wisdom?”

 

His guest shrugged. “Makes sense for someone who’s superstitious to believe that. Water’s a basic building block of life as we know it.”

 

“Yes.” His host dipped the wooden spoon in the tureen, filling it. His guest licked his dry, cracked lips in anticipation . . . but the water was not forthcoming. At least not yet.

 

“This water doesn’t merely _represent_ life and knowledge. Here, in this place, for people like us, it _is_ life and knowledge. It is information, and once it is had, it cannot be forgotten. Only acted upon or—at your own peril—ignored.”

 

Sighing, his guest reached for the spoon. But his host held it out of reach. “Whatever you say, whoever you are.”

 

His host tutted disapprovingly. “To live or die is the least of the choices you must make now. I know you don’t understand this— _cannot_ understand this—until you drink the water. But remember that if _this_ life is what you choose, you won’t be alone.”

 

Snorting, his guest, lunged for the spoon, surprised he had the strength to do so. But not surprised when his host held it away again. He rolled his eyes. “I’ve always been alone,” he said, faking for the spoon a second time, then grabbing the tureen from the other man’s unsuspecting hand.

 

“Oi!” his host cried out, dropping the spoon and grabbing for the tureen. But it was too late. His guest was already drinking from it, water spilling down the sides of his dusty face as he gulped and moaned in ecstasy.

 

As the water instantly sluiced into the dark, dried-out hollows within him, it filled him with more than itself. It filled him with light . . . it illuminated all the abyssal spaces within and no few of the spaces without, healing him and completing him.

 

 _Finn_ , he thought suddenly, the one clear thought from a million buzzing around his head like a hive of eager bees. _I was called FN-2187, first, but_ he _named me_ Finn _. . . that was my_ name.

 

Closing his eyes as he continued to drink, Finn felt his host’s hand land on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. “One does not _guzzle_ the water of life and knowledge as if it were a stein of beer!”

 

“Let him guzzle, if he would live. If he would _know_ ,” another voice said, gravelly and low, amused and indulgent. It came from the shadows into which Finn’s host had glanced not two minutes ago. “Let him take the water of life and knowledge with the gusto of which only the young and ignorant are capable. For once he is older and wiser . . . life and knowledge will give him small comfort, indeed.”

 

“But, Master—”

 

“Be still. . . .”

 

And that was the last Finn heard of that exchange, for he’d dropped the empty tureen in his lap as the buzzing in his head reached a fever-pitch, each thought whipping by faster than light, yet demanding his attention.

 

For it was there. All of _their_ knowledge, and it would _not_ be ignored.

 

 _I know where I am_ , he realized in a moment of clarity as he managed to catch one thought and hold onto it briefly. _I’m in the space between life and death. I have to decide whether I’m staying or . . . going on. To the next life. And there_ is _a life after this . . . a life with a proper family on a planet in the Outer Rim. I’ll have a mother and father who love me and will protect me, and I’ll grow up happy . . . have the life that should’ve always been mine, only. . . ._

 

That life, he could see, would have many joys and many loves. But none of them would be the one with warm, flashing hazel eyes. None of them would be the best pilot in the galaxy. None of them would have stayed by his side in the infirmary, swearing off all missions for the New Republic and the Resistance until Finn was awake. None of them would be by his side, right now, praying to the Maker, as he’d done every day since their return from Starkiller Base, that he wake up. . . .

 

 _In truth, even death is life, after a time and a fashion, just as life is death, after a time and a fashion. If I choose to live now, I will eventually die. But if I choose death now, so will I eventually_ live _, only . . . it will be a life without_ him _. And that’s no kind of life at all. At least not for me_.

 

_Then my choice is made._

 

And with his choice made, he lost hold of the thought, and tried once more to grasp it. But it was gone . . . indecypherable amongst the buzz of the collective knowledge, lore, and memories, of eons. It overwhelmed him, blocked out his sight and hearing, until he was trapped in a darkness that was lit with millions upon billions of galaxies.

 

And he recognized each star. Could reach out to it and know it’s history. For each star represented the knowledge and lives of trillions. And it was up to him to make sense of as much of it as he could in this lifetime . . . or go insane trying.

 

And Finn knew which it was likely to be. But maybe being crazy wouldn’t be so bad if he could look into those hazel eyes every once in a while and just . . . exist. . . .

 

With a pained cry, he clutched his head and collapsed back into the pallet he lay upon. Darkness came for him them. A darkness without stars. A _peaceful_ darkness, in which he knew nothing.

 

It would be the last such peaceful, unknowing span he would ever have.

 

And it would be _brief_.

 

#

 

The Jedi Knight shook his head as he watched the boy, Finn, sleep.

 

“It is done, then,” he murmured, reaching out to touch the boy’s face. In his sleep, Finn frowned and mumbled: “Poe. . . ?”

 

“Yes . . . it is done.”

 

“Neither Luke, nor Rey will be able to train him. Or contain him.”

 

“That is true. He must then train and contain himself.”

 

“And how, pray, tell, will he do that? He is . . . unprecedented! Never since the first Keeper of Jedi lore has there been a Keeper who wasn’t first a fully trained and experienced knight!”

 

“Well, you know how the saying goes: There’s a first time for everything under the sun.”

 

“Hmph. I don't think that's quite how it goes.”

 

A low, gravelly chuckle. “Don’t fret, so. He may not have the training of his predecessors, but he _will_ have their help. And the help of his friends and loved ones.”

 

“But will that be help _enough_?”

 

“We cannot know, yet. But one thing we do know . . . the love of his friends will give him strength, while loving them in return will give him courage. And that shall stand him in good stead.”

 

The Jedi knight sighed as the ghost of a ghost of a hand settled on his shoulder, lighter than the merest suggestion of a feather’s touch. Yet it sent a thrill through him, nonetheless. “I can recall many a time when love wasn’t enough to save a Jedi from the grimmest of prospects.”

 

A soft sigh. “Don’t. You’ll only hurt us both—”

 

“Even now, love is not enough to unite those who have been torn asunder by death.” Looking up from contemplation of the sleeping boy, the Jedi knight met the dark eyes of his ‘bonded. He could not read what he saw there, other than affection and concern, but through their Force-bond he felt his erstwhile Master’s unease with the turn of their conversation. That unease hurt his heart and caused him to look away, back at the sleeping boy. “Will it always be like this?”

 

“Nothing lasts forever.”

 

“Cold comfort, that.” The Jedi knight snorted. “Forever encompasses a very long time.”

 

That suggestion of a feather’s touch ghosted across his cheek. “All beings follow the Force, according to their nature.”

 

“Platitudes.”

 

“Truth.”

 

“The _truth_ is that we need not be apart to serve the Light, and might serve it better as one. It is capriciousness and I dare say something _not_ of the Light that keeps us apart.” The Jedi knight paused, leaning away from the ghostly touch. “Or it is _you_ that keeps us apart, with no care for the harm it does and the pain it causes.”

 

To this, the other ghost did not respond. The Jedi knight nodded, his long-held suspicions confirmed. That, too, hurt. Like a dull sha’ar blade to the gut.

 

“Had you lived, we would have soul-bonded . . . I knew it and you knew it. It was only a matter of time. And now, in death, which is really only the waystation between one life and the next, when time is all we have, you prevent our souls from completing a quest that has been eons in the making.” The Jedi knight’s voice barely shook, but shook, nonetheless. “Why?”

 

A soft sigh that the Jedi knight could feel all around him as a slight vibration in the Force. “When the time is right, I _promise_ —”

 

“And when will _that_ be? Will you at last _tell_ _me_?” the Jedi knight demanded, turning to face his companion as that strange vibration grew stronger, more intense. “How much longer must we wai—”

 

And the Jedi knight was surprised by the soft, sweet, firm, _palpable_ kiss that sent the words flying from lips and mind. He moaned into the barely-there taste of water and citrus that pervaded his very being . . . before the kiss faded, and that strange vibration in the Force—a _warping_ of it—was suddenly smoothing away . . . suddenly gone.

 

As was the ghost of his former Master.

 

Breathing hard, tears standing out in his eyes, the Jedi knight turned back to the boy on the pallet and took his hand. Under the boy’s dark lids, darker eyes had begun to roll restlessly.

 

“It is likely that, with the power brewing inside you, the knowledge fighting to be used, that you won’t think you have time for something as simple as mortal love,” he whispered, squeezing the boy’s dry, fevered hand. “But in the end, when the time has come to review your life, the only love you will ever regret is the love you did not have the courage to explore.”

 

The boy’s face scrunched up in his sleep, his eyes rolling faster than ever under their lids. “Poe,” the boy breathed again. The Jedi knight nodded, smiling just a little, though there were still tears in his eyes.

 

“ _Yes_. And if you remember that when you wake up . . . I’ll certainly account you wiser than my Master _and_ I put together.”

 

TBC


End file.
